As you begin to plan outfits with all of your new holiday baubles & clothes, check out this color wheel reference from LUCKY Magazine. I have been hoarding this since May and am ready to resurrect it for y’all.

Yep. May. See? I knew it would come in handy…

Complementary colors are pretty basic…

Yes, we learned about primary and secondary colors in 3rd grade art class, I know. But stay with me here…

But Lucky’s advice on split complementary colors, color triads and tetradic color schemes are priceless! Click the pics to explore the article. I’m sure a lot of you inherently follow these rules (some of us have a good eye for color!) but it’s fascinating — and very helpful — to see the tried-and-true method behind the madness. This is like, science or whatever.

A-haaaa! See, this is some next-level business. I love this chart so much, I’m printing it out as a reference chart to keep in my STASH.

What a valuable visual for those of you interested in nail art color pairings, or choosing the perfect shade for a special occasion.

What can I say… I splurged! May I present the photo evidence of my first foray into foil manicures. Allison, this one’s for you!

Yesssss. It’s mine. Miiiine!

Very well-packaged! Quite the assortment here.

I still have no idea why this was included, lol

A new full-size Ciaté is always welcome!

This is a little bottle of “Foil Fix.” It reminded me a lot of watered-down Elmer’s Glue.

The instructions were a little intimidating (and charmingly British), but the process was actually very simple. You paint the Foil Fix where you want the foil to stick; the entire nail, just a section, just a dot, etc. Let the Foil Fix dry for 60 seconds or so… Press the foil down on the nail, shiny side up… Rip off and VOILA.

Speaking of foil… look at these awesome colors! The sheets of foil were incredibly thin. Even thinner than a Listerine Strip. (Anyone remember those??)

The foils came in this cute little envelope. It comes in handy because you’ll find you have a ton of foil left! I only used one sheet of each color for my look. I could do at least 6-7 more foil manicures with the materials included in the kit.

Since there was no legitimate reason to only use the color of polish that came with the kit, Ciaté Kiss Chase, I decided to add two colors to the mix; OPI The IT Color and Essie Pretty Edgy.

Bam! The finished look.

I had a lot of fun looking at this mani. I did mine a little crazy, but you could do a much more subtle look by limiting yourself to a base color and then using just one / two colors of foil for a simpler approach.

A few days later, my foils really started to fade.

If you compare this photo to earlier shots, you can really see the disappearing foil.

Although the kit was an indulgence at $19, I’ve decided it’s actually a great deal. You get a full bottle of Ciaté “Paint Pots” polish, which retails for $15. You get the bottle of Foil Fix. And then you get tons of foils. Again, I have to stress how generous this kit is with the foil.

Overall, I loved the Ciaté Very Colourfoil Manicure™ Kit, but I’ll admit it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The DIY feel of the kit was awesome — doing my nails totally felt like an art project! I really enjoyed getting a feel for working with the foil. It’s an imperfect exercise, so there’s that element of the unexpected when you rip the foil off. You hope for the best and just try again if you didn’t get what you wanted the first time.

The downside is that the foil doesn’t last very long. You can count on this looking for for about 2 days, and after that the foil just begins to wear away. Another issue I encountered was an area of Foil Fix that never had foil properly adhere to it. The nature of Foil Fix is that a top coat won’t really stick to it. Meaning, if you’ve got a patch of Foil Fix on your nail that doesn’t get covered with foil, it will stay gummy. Gross.

I was particularly excited to try out Stars at Night, a silver holographic bar glitter in a clear base. My friend Laura (who’s guest posted here before) once painted a similar glitter by Sally Hansen over bare nails. The bar glitter would flash out in little bursts of holo, but the overall effect was far from bling-in-a-bad-way. It was more of an effortless sparkle. I loved it and was dying to recreate it. I used a cream-colored polish from a Digital Underground / The New Black set I had on hand and applied one coat of Stars at Night.

Struggling to capture the sparkle here…

Imagine me waving my hand wildly to get the glow caught on film.

Can you see some hyper-holo action there?

I rarely ever make this comment about glitter but… Stars at Night had way too much glitter and not enough base for me. Usually it’s the other way around! The coverage was more complete than I expected. The next time I use this, I think I’ll choose a light gray or metallic silver base so that the bars of glitter are less obvious.

And here’s my favorite kind of aforementioned bon bon.

The second polish I had to try ASAP was Heavenly Angel. It’s a clear base filled with iridescent chunks; not flakies. Do not confuse these with flakies. These are thicker, coarser, very sparkly chunks. I realize “chunks” is not the most flattering descriptor, but let’s call it like it is! Chunks!

I put this on over a gorgeous deep emerald cream by Illamasqua called Kink. It was a gift from my friend Alison, so it made this manicure even more fun to wear. (Thanks, AliCat!) I wanted to make sure that the chunks would stand out, so I chose a dark base color for contrast; it looked awesome. No complaints on this one, I’d just caution you guys to be careful with the chunks, because sometimes one will get wayward and stick up, or even hang off of your nail. You’ll want to watch out for rascally ones like that before you apply a top coat.

There’s lots of gleaming green and blue, but I think the iridescent chunks are influenced by your base color. If you went for a peach, pink, or purple, I think you’d see different shimmers.

I know this has already been an action-packed post, but I have one more thing to say, and that is: I’m giving away three pairs of Selena Gomez polishes!

Entering for your chance to win is easy — just leave a comment on this post! No duplicate entries, please.

The cutoff for entries is 11:59pm Pacific time on Thursday, March 7th. The three winners will be randomly selected through Random.org and announced on Friday, March 8th. For this giveaway, only winners with U.S. shipping addresses are eligible. (Sorry for the inconvenience, worldwide readers!) For the nitty gritty details, click here.

I took some time off to kick back and relax with the fam and my three cats. Yep, I’m up to three. >^..^<>^..^<>^..^< The news of my recent adoption has been met with some skepticism. But you know what? Daenerys Targaryen has three dragons and nobody has ever, not once, not in the show nor ye olde canon, said “Gosh, Dany. Three? Do you really need three?”

So it’s 2013, man oh man… I remember when it become The Year Two Thousand. I liked to say “The Year Two Thousand” like a robot; that’s why I loved Flight of the Conchords’ “The Humans Are Dead” after just one listen. And now that it’s 2013, I feel like the future really is here. I guess it’s the addition of the “-teen” that’s tripping me out.

For those of us here in the United States, it’s a big day. ElectionDay.

Please make every effort you can to get out there and vote. There are countless reasons why, but the most important is this: the outcome of this election will, without a doubt, impact you directly.

Take the time to do your part so that, when results are revealed, you can take pride (or take solace) in the fact that you voted for the choices you believe in, the platforms you support, and the men you trust to lead our nation.

What happens after you cast your ballot is what we call democracy. Or computer hacking. J/k, j/k. (?) Take what control you have, and use it!